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I froze for a few minutes because I didn’t know what to say or do. Hannah was something, I guessed a witch from the whole potion comment, and my mum had all her memories back. I certainly hadn’t expected this.
“Are you ok?” Luke said, rubbing his hand on my back.
“Are you a witch?” I asked Hannah.
She shook her head. “Nope. I’m something you would never expect.”
I glanced at Luke.
“Hannah is a gargoyle,” he said, as if it was the most natural thing to say.
“A what? As in the ugly stone creatures that sit on a church?”
“Uh hum,” Hannah said, coughing. “Do I look like an ugly stone creature to you?”
Luke laughed. “Gargoyles are classed as shifters because they shift from human form to their...not so human form.”
“Do I dare ask what that might be?” I asked, looking at Hannah with a raised eyebrow.
“We don’t turn into stone, but we do have exceptionally thick skin. Not much can penetrate it.”
“But what do you look like? Are you...you?”
Hannah grinned. “Oh no. We kind of look like trolls to be honest.”
“You mean like full on naked and slimy and stuff?”
She laughed. “No, there’s no slime, thank you very much.”
“But you are naked?”
“Not as me, in human form, but naked in the sense that gargoyles don’t really have genitals so there’s nothing to cover.”
I frowned. “But if you don’t have genitals then how do you...you know...make more of you?”
“You mean HAVE SEX?”
My entire face flushed with heat. I don’t know why, I just couldn’t bring myself to say the word. It felt naughty for some reason.
“Our Cat here has a really bad aversion to the word SEX, don’t you, Cat?” Hannah said, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
Luke put his arm around my shoulder and squeezed me. “I think it’s cute.”
“I’m certainly not complaining,” Mum said.
“Alright, alright. Can we please stop trying to embarrass me?”
Hannah laughed. “In answer to your question, we have to be in human form to reproduce.”
I pointed at her. “Now that word I can deal with.” I pursed my lips and asked, “Have you known about me all this time?”
She nodded. “Think of us as bodyguards. I was born specifically with the purpose of being your bodyguard, so I had an extra shot of magic most gargoyles don’t get. That means I’m stronger, fiercer, and tougher than a regular gargoyle.”
I didn’t know what to say. How could I possibly even begin to process that? Did this mean our entire friendship had been nothing but a lie? Something that was forced rather than something that developed naturally?
“Are you ok, Kitty Cat?” Mum asked. “You’ve gone a little pale.”
I nodded. “Yeah...it’s just a bit of a shock. I didn’t expect to find out that my best friend was actually forced to be my best friend.” A wave of tears built up in my eyes, springing out of nowhere. “I need some air.”
My mind swimming with emotions and trying to make sense of everything, I ran for the back door and opened it, only to reveal the beginning of yet another rain shower. I slammed the door shut and sighed, cursing the stupid weather and everything about this whole damn scenario.
“Kitty Cat,” Mum said, walking into the utility room. “I know it’s a lot to take in but it’s going to be alright now.”
Mum put her hand on my back. Leaning against the worktop over the washing machine, I stared at the black marble effect, trying to make patterns out of the silver specks. I knew she was trying to comfort me, but I just wanted to be on my own to process all of this at my own speed, chunk by morbid chunk.
“My whole life is unravelling around me, Mum,” I said, still staring at the worktop. “I’ve been encased in layers of lies for eighteen years and now all those layers are being peeled away and I feel nothing but naked, vulnerable, exposed. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“You’re still you, Caitlyn,” she said. I knew when she used my real name she was being serious. “You always will be you. No one can take that away from you.”
I turned around and sighed. “But who is Caitlyn Summers? I thought a week ago I was a regular eighteen-year-old girl with a vampire boyfriend. Now I’m some doppelganger nuclear bomb of a witch who everyone apparently wants a piece of. My parents aren’t human, my best friend isn’t either, and I’ve been abandoned by said vampire boyfriend and left in the care of a werewolf. I mean, what is this?”
“It’s your life, sweetpea,” she said, her emerald green eyes full of love and care.
“It wasn’t my life a week ago, a month ago, heck, six months ago I didn’t even know vampires were real.”
“It’s ok to feel like this. It’s perfectly understandable and expected. Just take it all in at your own pace.”
I folded my arms over my chest and in my most sarcastic voice said, “But not too long because things need doing, right?”
Mum looked at the floor. I didn’t want her to feel bad but to some degree I kind of wanted her to. I felt trapped and totally isolated, I didn’t know what to think, say, or even feel.
“I need to get and out do something,” I said, sighing. “Luke, can we still go riding please? I need to clear my head.”
He plodded through and looked out of the window in the utility room. “It’s raining, but sure.”
“Can we go for a drive then or something? I just can’t stay in here.”
“Of course. Let me go sort a couple of things and then we’ll go.”
I nodded, feeling like a mountain had just been lifted from my shoulders. “I’m sorry, Mum. I know you’ve only just got here but I just...it’s too much for me at the minute.”
Mum nodded and grabbed my hand. “It’s fine. Hannah and I can stay here and formulate plans on what to do next. We need to make sure the funeral is security tight.”
The funeral. I hadn’t even thought about the funeral yet. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach. All of a sudden, my chest felt tight, the same constricting feeling from yesterday. The more I tried to suck in air, the tighter my chest became. I felt trapped in my own body and my own mind. I wanted to scream to free myself, but I could barely breathe enough air to keep myself alive. My brain kicked into survival mode, demanding more air but my body refused to cooperate.
Panic and fear hit me like a sledgehammer. Was this it? Was I going to suffocate myself to death? The more I tried to rid myself of such a claustrophobic feeling, the more I felt stuck and helpless. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I looked at Mum through a hazy film of water. Her eyes were flooded with terror and she yelled for Luke. Everything seemed to move in slow motion and I wondered if this was what happened when you were about to die. Is this what Dad experienced? Or did he see a bright light and walk towards it, engulfing himself in the afterlife forever? Did his life flash before his eyes, in his dreams? Had he woken up to try to tell me a final goodbye, only to find me asleep?
Luke ran through the kitchen and into the utility room. He stood in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Cat, Cat, look at me.”
I managed to move my eyes just enough to stare into his whiskey brown depths. Full of worry and concern, a pang of guilt hit my heart. I could see the profoundness of his feelings for me reflecting back at me.
“Cat, calm down and breathe with me,” he said. “Hold your breath, now breathe out. Good. Breathe in, hold it, now breathe out.”
He continued instructing me for a minute or so until the vice like grip on my chest started loosening. I couldn’t help but feel like a lucky mouse who’d escaped an invisible anaconda. A few minutes later, my breathing returned to normal, except for the wall of tiredness that suddenly hit me like a wrecking ball.
“Are you ok?” Luke said, rubbing his hands up and down my arms.
I nodded. “I’m tired.”
“Let’s get you to bed,” he said, slipping an arm around my shoulders and ushering me through into the kitchen.
“Do you need anything, Cat?” Mum asked, her voice shaking.
I shook my head. “I just need to sleep for an hour or so.”
“I’m not going anywhere. None of us are. We’ll be right here when you wake up.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Luke guided me into the hallway and to the stairs. When I put my right foot on the bottom step and put my weight on my leg, my leg started shaking and I fell to my knees.
“Ok, that’s enough,” he said, scooping me up like a feather. “Do you want me to stay with you?”
I rested my head against his chest and nodded.
A sharp knock at the front door made me jump, sending my heart into supersonic speeds.
“It’s just the postman,” Luke said, putting me carefully down on the stairs. “Two seconds.”
Luke opened the door and took a parcel. A long slender box wrapped in lilac coloured paper had me questioning what on earth it was.
“It looks like this is for you,” Luke said, handing me the mysterious item.
I didn’t have the energy to query it. I took it from him and turned it over, spotting the address label with my name on it. In beautiful italic handwriting. Marcus’ handwriting.
I glanced up at Luke, my entire body trembling. “It’s from Marcus.”
Luke’s eyes flickered towards the kitchen. “Just a parcel for Cat,” he shouted. “It’s all sorted.”
“Ok,” Mum called back.
Luke walked back up to me and picked me up. “You’re not opening that down here,” he whispered.
He carried me up to bed, laid me down, then closed and locked the door. When he came back to the bed, I was laid on my side, staring at the parcel.
“You going to open it?”
I sighed. “I’m nervous to.”
“Do you want me to open it?”
He laid down on his side, mirroring me. I pushed it across the bed towards him. He’d left a fair amount of space in between us.
In a matter of seconds, he’d shredded the pretty paper to reveal a dark blue velvet box. My heart jumped instantly. I knew it was jewellery.
Luke opened the lid, his eyes instantly widening. “I dread to think what that cost,” he said. “And it looks like you’ve got a note.” He picked up a folded piece of paper and handed it to me as he turned the box around.
When I caught sight of what had surprised him so much, I gasped. A diamond encrusted necklace complete with a silver clasped moonstone in a drop pendant stared back at me. With my birthday being in June, I had a choice of three stones for my birth month. Moonstone had always been the one for me.
I opened the note to see more of his familiar handwriting which read,
My darling Caitlyn, I know I am not there to ease the pain of your father’s untimely passing but please take comfort in this reminder of me. I kissed each stone before sending it to you. I will return home soon. My longing to be with you is my greatest desire right now. All my love, Marcus.
I read the note several times. I didn’t really know what to make of it. Not only that, I didn’t have the energy to think about it nor discuss it right now.
“Can you put it on the floor please?” I said, closing the lid and pushing it back to Luke. “I can’t deal with that right now.” I threw the note at him and said, “Make of that what you will.”
He put the box on the floor, before reading the note. When he’d finished, he raised an eyebrow. “Let’s not deal with that right now.”
I nodded. “Sleep first.”
He closed his eyes and folded his arms over his chest, appearing to be peacefully asleep almost instantly. I studied his face for several minutes, wondering why his handsomeness had never struck me in the same way Marcus’ did.
His long dark eyelashes rested against his bronzed cheeks, his skin smooth like velvet. Finger length brown hair gleamed like smoky quartz and his clothes clung to his lithe body. He was always warm, always smiling, always knew how to put me at ease. I realised he was ruggedly handsome, a proper working man who would still be just as handsome at sixty years of age.
Yet Marcus, who resembled nothing short of a Calvin Klein poster model, was handsome in a completely different way. He was simply breath taking to look at, but had he been human, his good looks would have worn away by the time he was forty. However, he wasn’t even vaguely human.
I sighed. Marcus had lived a long time. He was refined, sophisticated, meticulous with everything he did. The way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he handled different situations and different people was so smooth, like a well-rehearsed actor in front of a camera. He lived a life three levels up from mine and it fascinated me. I was like a magpie being dazzled with shiny things and promises.
Being in his world made me feel like I’d made it into some secret society but no matter where he took me or what beautiful necklace he bought me, he never quite touched me emotionally, spiritually, not like Luke did.
That was the first time I began to question me and Marcus seriously. The whole ex thing aside, where were we going anyway? He lied to me and left me alone in the middle of the night, abandoned me when I needed him the most. Being with Marcus would ensure a life of drama, passionate arguments, and missing elements of things I wanted and needed.
But I couldn’t deny the fact I loved him. Or was it in fact lust? As much as I was mad at him right now, I knew I had feelings for him that were unresolved, even if they were in question.
I sighed and closed my eyes. Everything was always better after a sleep.